


The Leap

by msermesth



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, West Coast Avengers, West Coast Avengers (Comics 2018-19)
Genre: F/F, Getting Together, Team Dynamics, Training
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:34:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21838306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msermesth/pseuds/msermesth
Summary: Kate has finally committed herself to asking America out.Too bad it ends up being the same day Captain America decides to stop by.
Relationships: Kate Bishop/America Chavez
Comments: 13
Kudos: 69
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	The Leap

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lookatallthemoresigive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookatallthemoresigive/gifts).



> Happy yuletide! I was so excited to get to write a fic about this lovable, silly team.

Johnny fixed Kate with a glare and said, “Let’s try this one more time.”

“Ok,” Kate huffed. She paced the length of the kitchen a few times before she turned to the blender she had been pretending was America so they could practiced. “So...I know it’s been a while and I’m not sure if you’re interested, and for a long time I thought I _wasn’t_ interested, except I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I think I might actually be really into you?”

Johnny’s head dropped to the table with an exaggerated sigh. “Please do not ask your best friend out on a date with that much confusion in your voice.”

“But--” 

“No ‘but’s. Do you want to date her?”

“Yes,” Kate responded without a pause.

“Does the idea of kissing her make your stomach do somersaults?”

Kate _did_ pause that time, but only to look starry-eyed at the blender and imagine what it’d be like to slip her arms around America’s waist. “Yes,” she finally answered. “It does.” 

Johnny’s eyes bulged. “Then use that confidence! How hard is it to ask ‘America, will you grab dinner with me?’ after our training session today?”

“America…” Kate started, and then turned back to face Johnny. She had to do it today, it was their first camera-free day in a month. She wouldn't get this opportunity again for awhile. “What if I ruin our friendship? She means so much to me.”

“It won’t. I know it.” Johnny looked between Kate and the blender and smiled. “You two are a sure thing.”

“You’ve always been such a romantic.” Kate scoffed. “Wait...it it weird that you’re trying to help me ask someone else out?”

Johnny shrugged. “We battled an entire small army of rollerblading zombies on Tuesday, so this—helping my ex-girlfriend date my sister’s ex-girlfriend—is not so crazy. Is it weird to you that I’m with Noh-Varr now?”

Kate considered the question and mimicked Johnny’s shrug. “Doesn’t really bother me, I guess.”

“See?” he responded and looked as smug as Kate would have expected. “Anyway, let’s try it _one_ more time. Would it be easier if I just pretended to be America?”

“Nope.” Kate shook her head vigorously. “Definitely not.” She planned to add a few more declarations, but the familiar crooning of Bruce Springsteen begun to come from her pocket. She pulled out the phone and was dismayed, but not surprised, to see a familiar Captain America avatar on her screen before she accepted the call. “Hi Cap!” she exclaimed, way too loud, and then cursed herself for being unable to act like a normal person.

“Hi, Kate. Any chance you and the rest of your team are free later today?” Fear clutched Kate’s heart. “I’d like to stop by and see your Avengers in action,” Cap said without a hint of derision in his voice, which was somehow worse. 

Johnny was mouthing ‘Captain America?” at her and he looked terrified. Kate nodded back at him before saying, “Yes, we are. Actually we were going to train anyway, so having you around would be really useful and—”

Cap’s voice was (always) unnecessarily authoritative. “Great, I’ll meet you at your headquarters in a few hours. Good luck with the training.” He didn’t add ‘you’re going to need it’, but Kate added that part in her head anyway.

“Woah,” Johnny muttered to himself. “So that was really him?”

Kate collapsed on to a chair next to him. “Yeah.”

“And today, he’s coming—”

“Yeah”

“What are we going to do?” 

“I don’t know,” she said and stared up at the ceiling. The new headquarters construction was done, at least. 

Clint wandered in and looked between the two of them. “Don’t know what?” he asked and joined them at the table, carrying a bag of potato chips and none of the overwhelming anxiety Kate was feeling.

She reached for a potato chip. “Captain America is coming to visit us today while we’re training.”

“Steve’s coming? That’s awesome!” Clint said and he looked genuinely excited.

“Steve?!” Johnny’s eyes bulged and he looked at Kate. He still thought Clint’s familiarity with the Avengers was unreal. 

Clint nodded. “Don’t worry, it’ll be fine.” He fixed Kate with A Look that was suddenly serious. “So what’s the deal with America? Are you finally going to ask her out?”

Kate slid down half the chair, groaned, and decided to change the subject. “Let’s not tell the team about Cap’s visit.”

“You’re worried they’re going to be preoccupied all day?” Clint asked, not really believing it.

“Nah.” Kate grabbed at another one of Johnny’s chips. “They’re just going to be jerks.”

Johnny made a face like _yeah, you’re right_ and stood up. “I’m going to hit the gym before training starts and I make a bigger fool of myself than usual.”

“Don’t let Cap get to you, he’s harmless,” Clint protested, and Kate shot him a paragraph-worth of non-verbal communication that essentially told him to stop lying. He just shrugged in response. 

“And yet that helps me... not at all,” Johnny said as he left, waving at them without turning around. 

They sat there while Clint munched on the chips and Kate contemplated just how she was going to get the team under control for this one day. The seconds ticked down as she contemplated her aptitude as a leader and her feelings for America.

It was Clint that broke the silence. “Soooooo….. What’d you going to do about America?”

Kate hit her head against the table.

* * *

“Ugh, Quentin, when I say ‘we’re going to practice the bubble thing’,” Kate said the last part with finger quotes. “I mean we’re going to practice the bubble thing. I know you hate it and I don’t care. It’s really useful.”

Quentin rolled his eyes, hard, as if he really needed to drive home the point that he felt he was too good to have to practice what he thought was a basic maneuver. If she only knew Quentin by his powerset and not as his teammate, Kate might have agreed. 

But she had been on a team with Quentin for months now, and she knew he was shit when it came to coordinated teamwork. Johnny, who was still rubbing the part of his head that had collided with the cement floor of the training space, was ample evidence of that. They had been practicing a maneuver where members of the team were jumping from through America’s portals at higher and higher distances from the ground and Quentin was supposed to ‘catch’ them as they did.

They had been at this for the last hour and this was only the first one of seven maneuvers Kate had wanted to practice today. Somehow they were getting _worse_ as they practiced. Noh-Varr was still making googly eyes at Johnny. America was muttering about being somewhere else and that that place could be anywhere but here. Clint was off to the side, game to do anything Kate asked of him but unwilling to step in and create order. And Gwen—

“Stay, Jeff, stay,” Gwen said as she took a few steps back from where the baby landshark was impatiently sitting so she could take a photo of him with her phone. “That’s a good boy,” she followed up with, but instead of being a good landshark, Jeff stood up and jumped towards her before she was finished. He was like that. 

“Jeff, listen,” Quentin muttered under his breath, clearly not wanting the rest of the team knowing he cared. 

“What’re you doing?” Kate asked.

Gwen set Jeff down again and carefully backed away. “I’m trying to get some photos for the team’s Insta.” She crouched and managed to get Jeff to stay still long enough to get a photo of him. “Everyone knows you need a lot of social media hype to keep a weird book going these days.” 

Kate blinked, confused and definitely not alone, given that everyone else staring with her. “You mean ‘team’.”

Gwen shrugged. “Good point. You need social media to keep a weird ‘team’ book going.”

No one knew how to respond to that. Gwen just happened to say things like that. It made Kate feel like someone was watching her, even when the reality show cameras were off. Everyone was looking between each other like that would answer their questions. Or everyone _besides_ Quentin, who was smiling softly. 

Kate had to get this training back on track. “Ok, team!” She clapped her hands and tried to look more confident than she felt. One-by-one, she looked each member of the West Coast Avengers in the eye, only glancing past America because looking at her was doing odd things to her heartbeat. “Let’s try this one more time!” she said like she expected them all to enthusiastically agree. No one did except Jeff, whose tail was probably just wagging because Gwen was petting him. 

To the team’s credit, they did actually try, and it was _actually_ going fine. There were no hiccups, there were no pranks, there was only a well coordinated team acts as a unit. Acting like _Avengers_. 

That warm, deep feeling of pride was probably the reason Kate missed a step as she jumped from America’s portal to one of Quentin’s bubbles and instead free-fell through the air. She had just enough time to prepare herself for impact, but instead of hitting cold cement she instead ended up continuing to fly through the air as if on a loop, until it was America’s arms and not the floor that broke her fall. 

“Wow,” she whispered as America floated down to the ground. She was holding Kate bridal-style and close to her body. There was something soft in her brown eyes, something so different than her normal hard exterior, and Kate wanted to reach out to close the distance between them. 

Instead, America set her feet to the ground gently. “Damsel in distress is a new one for you, Princess,” she said to Kate, like Kate was the only other person in the room. 

Kate was so completely, superbly, stupid. Why did it have to take her this long to figure out that the magnetic pulling feeling she had been experiencing every time she thought of America actually meant more than friendship. Her timing was just _that bad._ She should say something witty and romantic that segue naturally into asking America out. 

What she said instead was: “Ugh, yeah, I guess it is.” Awareness of the world around her burst through her bubble and her limitless swooning feeling was gone. She turned her back on America, so overwhelmed that she needed to take ten steps away before she judged it safe enough to turn around. With a stilted clap she announced to the group, “Ok, that’s enough of that. Let’s move onto the next thing. How about we try that thing where Noh-Varr throws Johnny as fast as he can and we try and dodge him”

Everyone except Noh-Varr did not look like they wanted to do that, at all.

“Anybody have any questions?” she asked when no one looked like they were going to listen to her. 

All of them raised their hands in unison.

“Yes?” She pointed at Gwen because Gwen’s question was more likely to be strange than defiant. 

Gwen picked up Jeff and held him tight between her arms. “Is something going on? You’re acting weird.” she asked Kate, and Jeff opened his mouth full of sharp teeth in what looked like a silent bark of agreement.

Kate put both hands on her hips. “Nothing’s wrong.” She resisted the urge to cross her fingers behind her back. 

“Kate, come on.” Nor-Varr told her with A Meaningful Look. 

Quentin had one eyebrow raised, clearly sensing drama. America's face was doing an uncomfortable worried scrunching thing and Kate’s eyes passed over her quickly out of necessity. Johnny was looking somewhere out in the distance and Clint was smiling like he was saying _you got this_. Jeff was wagging his tail, but probably for unrelated reasons 

Kate decided to come clean—about the one thing, at least.

“Captain America is going to make a surprise visit to our training today.”

“Annnnd?” Quentin asked. The rest of the team—except Johnny—nodded in agreement. 

She sighed and snuck a look at America. “And I didn’t want to futz it up.”

“I don’t understand how you could ‘futz’ it up,” Noh-Varr said, putting ‘futz’ in air quotes.

“Oh! I know what’s going to happen!” Gwen practically jumped into the air as she spoke and clutched Jeff even closer. “This is the part where you figure out that you really aren’t nervous about Cap's visit."

"And what am I nervous about?" she said while she thought _don't look at America, don't look at America._

Johnny didn't get the mental memo, however, and his eyes went straight to America, a fact that was not lost on Quentin, who in turn made some sort of strange eye communication to Gwen, who was so surprised she let Jeff go. Jeff began to jump up and down next to America, who absentmindedly petted him while giving Kate a very interested glare.

Guiltily, Johnny began to back up slowly and pointed at the door behind him. “Why don’t we get going?”

“Wait! What is happening?” Kate asked, very confused why her team was bailing on her. “What about Cap?”

Clint shouted, “Don’t worry about him. I’ve been distracting him since you were—” He used his hand to measure a distance from the floor “—this high.” Kate didn’t think it looked like a reasonable height for a nine-year-old. “Come on, guys. I have a lot to teach you.”

They all followed him out the door, all except America, who stood rooted at the spot.

“The rest of them might fall for Clint’s BS, but I won’t,” she said, crossed her arms, and planted both feet firmly on the floor. "What's going on?"

Nothing was an easy answer. For the hundredth time this week, she wondered if this conversation would be any easier if she had done it sooner. "I've got a question to ask you and I don't want you to freak."

"Ok…"

Kate took a deep breath and tried to remind herself to speak slowly. Little benefit that had; instead she blurted out, "I wanted to ask you on a date tonight but I'm worried it's going to ruin our friendship." She hung her head. "Also, I wanted that to come out a lot smoother."

America was walking towards her, Kate could hear the rubber soles of her shoes on the cement. "I would never let that happen" America's voice was closer than Kate expected, and she looked up to see America's brown eyes on her.

"Are you talking about us dating?" She asked and feared the answer. America was so beautiful, how the hell was she supposed to be on the same team and not think that all the time?

America reached out and put her hand on Kate's shoulder. "I mean I wouldn't let it ruin our friendship."

The phrase ' _and time stopped'_ was such a cliche, but Kate didn't have another way to describe the seconds where they stood there and nothing happened and yet everything was happening. It all came together, and she knew what she should be doing. She threaded her fingers through America's curly hair and pulled her close until they were kissing.

Kate hadn't been spending a lot of time imagining what this would be like, which meant she had only so much time to build it up in her head. That was a good thing, because that kiss cleared any and all expectations she had, and then some. Her nervousness fell away. 

She didn't break the kiss when a whirring sound that she usually associated with a Quinjet came from somewhere behind her. She did regretfully pull herself away when a slightly less usual sound of something crashing followed. "We should probably deal with that first," she said and pointed behind her to the area where she heard the commotion emitting from. "But then, pizza."

America's smirk and nod was all she had been hoping for. 

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr post](https://msermesth.tumblr.com/post/190007713814/the-leap), if you want.


End file.
